Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hitler: Germany’s Generals and the Rise of the Nazis

Hindenburg, Ludendorff and Hitler: Germany’s Generals and the Rise of the Nazis One of a series of shows about the Rise of the Third Reich and the path to war. They are two of twentieth-century history’s most significant figures, yet today they are largely forgotten - Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, Germany’s First World War leaders. Although defeat in 1918 brought an end to their ’silent dictatorship’, both generals played a key role in the turbulent politics of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis. Historian Alexander Clifford, joins us for a reassessment of their political careers to question the popular image of these generals in the English-speaking world as honourable ’Good Germans’. For they were intensely political men, whose ideas and actions shaped the new Germany and ultimately led to Hitler’s dictatorship.